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March 2016 HRMonthly 15
14
hrmonline.com.au
»
SPECIAL ABILITY
The IT world has discovered the value that autistic people can bring
to an organisation. But the lessons they are learning about diversity
are important for HR professionals in any sector.
BY CHRIS SHEEDY
DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, THE ALLIED
intelligence services utilised unique talents of colour-blind
people to their benefit. Aerial photographs of enemy positions
had to be analysed to identify the movement and location of
troops and weapons. Whether the photos were black and white
or colour, camouf lage made the positions almost impossible
to distinguish. But colour-blind people had spent a lifetime
noticing visual differences that are not related to colour, so they
spotted camouf laged positions with ease. What had previously
been seen as a disability was suddenly recognised as a powerful
advantage.
Michael Fieldhouse, the director of federal government
and emerging business opportunities for Hewlett Packard
Enterprise (HPE), recalls being told about this by his father. It
is a story that stuck with him, and is one he uses to illustrate
the potency of the project that has been his passion ever since
he read a fascinating case study several years ago. The paper
was co-authored in 2007 by Professor Rob Austin, at the time
working at Harvard Business School. It profiled a Danish
not-for-profit called Specialisterne (The Specialists in Danish),
which placed people into software testing jobs and roles that
were recognised as monotonous and repetitive, but which
required great accuracy. Three out of four of Specialisterne’s
employees had been diagnosed with some form of Autism
Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Autism is defined in the research paper as “a brain condition
characterised by impairments in social interaction and
communication, as well as restricted and repetitive behaviour”.
But people with autism often have great memories and
attention to detail – perfect skills in software testing roles.
Fast forward to today and Specialisterne now has a presence
in Australia, partnering with several major players in software
and IT. HPE has partnered with the Australian Government
Department of Human Services to bring more people with
autism into the organisation. And software company, SAP has
helped to promote World Autism Awareness Day, featuring its
employees with autism on its website, and committing itself to
having one per cent of its global workforce made up of people
with ASD by 2020.
What does any of this have to do with the HR function
within organisations? Quite a lot, actually.
HIRING THE INDIVIDUAL
“For this to work, you need to make small changes throughout
most of your organisational processes, and that can be quite
intensive,” Fieldhouse says. “But that shouldn’t be seen as
a negative thing. Organisations need to be representative of
society, which has so many different flavours. We need to work
out how organisations access all of those flavours.”
“WE NEED PEOPLE WHO ARE
DIFFERENT TO COME UP WITH
IDEAS THAT ARE DIFFERENT
AND RECOGNISE THE VALUE IN
NEW IDEAS.”
PROFESSOR ROB AUSTIN, COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL
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